Monday, 22 December 2014

Book Advent Calendar Day 21: Happy Solstice to you

Happy Solstice to you, dear and gentle readers. It is now the turning of the year and the sun will stay gradually longer each day.

Winter is not all bad. It does give us an excuse time to be indoors and read by the fire. There is a quietness that settles on the earth and in the air up here in the northern hemisphere in our winter. A time to be still, to dream, and to wait. Creativity and growth and new life can only come after a time of darkness, and planting seeds. In my life, in the midst of this PTSD crisis I have been in for the past two months, there is a slow change in me, a settling down again of some of what was stirred up. The soul has it's own time. So I am learning how to sit still, and what being peaceful feels like. These are good things for me. It's good that it is winter now, I think. It matches what I need inside me. I am certainly more calmer than I was, though the anxiety is there, just under the surface.

My wish for you and for myself is: May the coming year be filled with peace, contentment, and many good new books. May the light increase in your life, and mine.

About Me

'book junkie', a writer and poet. Am often seen making lists of books to buy, or to get from the library; I have lists everywhere. My ultimate dream house has shelves everywhere for books. I have a dear family who puts up with my love of books, and 2 cats who lie on my books when I read them.

Chocolate quotes

How horrible it would be to live in a world without chocolate......Chocolate runs through my life like a comfort blanket; a teddy bear you can eat......I simply love chocolate. I adore it. I want it.- Nigel Slater in Nigel Slater's Real Food

Never underestimate the power of a word to change the world. - my own quote.

London - St Paul's Cathedral - photo by me

Favourite Book Quotes

"A book, too, can be a star, "explosive material, capable of stirring up fresh life endlessly, a living fire to lighten the darkness, leading out into the expanding universe.' " from Madeleine L'Engle's Newbery acceptance speech for A Wrinkle in Time.

She had no resources for solitude. (describing Mary in Persuasion)

In the next books I kept pushing at my own limitations and at the limits of science fiction. That is what the practice of an art is, you keep looking for the outside edge. When you find it, you make a whole, solid, real, and beautiful thing; anything less is incomplete. 'A Citizen of Mondath' essay, The Language of The Night, Ursula K. Le Guin

Olivia was a cartographer of imaginary places.- Haunting Olivia, short story, by Karen Russell.

"You've managed to make an enemy of Bufkin the monkey. Once he decided he needed to destroy you, you were basically doomed". - Mirror on the Wall"I've never heard of such a creature. What are his powers?" - Baba Yaga"He reads. He reads everything." - Mirror on the Wall- from Fables: Witches, by Bill Willingham